Josephine Tey Quotes

• The truth of anything at all doesn't lie in someone's account of it. It lies in all the small facts of the time. An advertisement in a paper, the sale of a house, the price of a ring.

  Josephine Tey

  Lying, House, Paper

  Josephine Tey (1995). “The Daughter of Time”, p.105, Simon and Schuster

  48 Copy quote

• Nothing great ever came out of common sense.

  Josephine Tey

  Common Sense, Common

  Josephine Tey (2012). “To Love and Be Wise”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• If you think about the unthinkable long enough it becomes quite reasonable.

  Josephine Tey

  Thinking, Long, Enough

  5 Copy quote

• Riches ... don't consist in having things, but in not having to do something you don't want to do. ... Riches is being able to thumb your nose.

  Josephine Tey

  Noses, Thumbs, Want

  JOSEPHINE TEY (1949). “BRAT FARRAR”

  5 Copy quote

• A man may own a ship, but unless he is captain of a crew he goes where the ship goes.

  Josephine Tey

  Men, Independence, May

  7 Copy quote

• Horse sense is the instinct that keeps horses from betting on men.

  Josephine Tey

  Horse, Men, Gambling

  Josephine Tey (1954). “Three by Tey”

  11 Copy quote

• Lack of education is an extraordinary handicap when one is being offensive.

  Josephine Tey

  Education, Women, Memorable

  "The Franchise Affair".

  5 Copy quote

• Weak people can be very stubborn.

  Josephine Tey

  People, Weakness, Stubborn

  Josephine Tey (1998). “A Shilling for Candles”, p.155, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• The trouble with you, dear, is that you think an angel of the Lord as a creature with wings, whereas he is probably a scruffy little man with a bowler hat.

  Josephine Tey

  Angel, Men, Thinking

  Josephine Tey (2012). “The Franchise Affair”, p.251, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• You can't have a tin can tied to your tail and go through life pretending it isn't there.

  Josephine Tey

  Tin Cans, Tails, Denial

  Josephine Tey (1998). “The Franchise Affair”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• It is the utterly destructive quality. When you say vanity, you are thinking of the kind that admires itself in mirrors and buys things to deck itself out in. But that is merely personal conceit. Real vanity is something quite different. A matter not of person but of personality. Vanity says, "I must have this because I am me." It is a frightening thing because it is incurable.

  Josephine Tey

  Real, Thinking, Vanity

  Josephine Tey (1952). “The singing sands”, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• Most people's first books are their best anyways. It's the one they wanted most to write.

  Josephine Tey

  Book, Writing, People

  Josephine Tey (2013). “The Daughter of Time”, p.196, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• Truth is often terribly thin, don't you think?

  Josephine Tey

  Thinking, Truth Is

  Josephine Tey (1998). “A Shilling for Candles”, p.137, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• It's an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don't want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed. Very odd, isn't it.

  Josephine Tey

  Thinking, Ideas, Annoyed

  5 Copy quote

• It was pleasant to talk shop again; to use that elliptical, allusive speech that one uses only with another of one's trade.

  Josephine Tey

  Use, Jargon, Speech

  Josephine Tey (2013). “The Daughter of Time”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• That was the way with grief: it left you alone for months together until you thought that you were cured, and then without warning it blotted out the sunlight.

  Josephine Tey

  Grief, Together, Warning

  JOSEPHINE TEY (1952). “The Singing Sands”

  5 Copy quote

• Nothing puts things in perspective as quickly as a mountain.

  Josephine Tey

  Perspective, Mountain

  Josephine Tey (2013). “The Daughter of Time”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• Truth isn’t in accounts but in account-books.

  Josephine Tey

  Book, Truth Is, Accounts

  Josephine Tey (1995). “The Daughter of Time”, p.105, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• It is not possible to love and be wise.

  Josephine Tey

  Wise, Wisdom, Being Wise

  Josephine Tey (2012). “To Love and Be Wise”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Letterwriting is the natural outlet of the "odds." The busy-bodies, the idle, the perverted, the cranks, the feel-it-my-duties ... Also the plain depraved. They all write letters. It's their safe outlet, you see. They can be as interfering, as long-winded, as obscene, as pompous, as one-idea'd, as they like on paper, and no one can kick them for it. So they write. My God, how they write!

  Josephine Tey

  Writing, Odds, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• The worst of pushing horrible things down into one's subconscious is that when they pop up again they are as fresh as if they had been in a refrigerator. You haven't allowed time to get at them to-to mould them over a little.

  Josephine Tey

  Mind, Littles, Pushing

  Josephine Tey (2012). “Brat Farrar”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• In hospitals there is no time off for good behavior.

  Josephine Tey

  Behavior, Good Behavior, Hospitals

  4 Copy quote

• Nothing in this world came out of satisfaction. Except the human race.

  Josephine Tey

  Race, World, Satisfaction

  Josephine Tey (1997). “Brat Farrar”, p.179, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• One would expect boredom to be a great yawning emotion, but it isn't, of course. It's a small niggling thing.

  Josephine Tey

  Yawning, Boredom, Emotion

  Josephine Tey (2013). “The Daughter of Time”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• After three days without one, the desire to read a newspaper vanished. And really, one was happier without.

  Josephine Tey

  Desire, Three, Newspapers

  Josephine Tey (1998). “A Shilling for Candles”, p.155, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

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